Further, a man of state has not less but greater liberty to speak any thing of himself when his merits are rewarded with injurious and unkind returns. Achilles usually gave the Gods their glory, and spoke modestly in this manner: Whene’er, by Jove’s decree, our conquering powers Shall humble to the dust Troy’s lofty towers. But when he was unhandsomely reproached and aspersed with contumelies, he added swelling words to his anger, and these in his own applause: I sacked twelve ample cities on the main; and also these: It was not thus, when, at my sight amazed, Troy saw and trembled, as this helmet blazed.II. I. 128; IX. 328; XVI. 70. For apologies claim a great liberty of speech and boasting, as considerable parts of their defence.

Themistocles also, having been guilty of nothing distasteful either in his words or actions, yet perceiving the Athenians glutted with him and beginning to neglect him, forbore not to say: Why, O ye happy people, do ye weary out yourselves by still receiving benefits from the same hands? Upon every storm you fly to the same tree for shelter; yet, when it is fair again, you despoil it of its leaves as you go away.

They therefore who are injured usually recount their good actions to the ingrate. And, if they also praise those excellences which others are pleased to condemn, they are not only pardonable but altogether without blame. For it is evident they do not reproach others, but apologize for themselves.

This gave Demosthenes a glorious freedom, yet allayed the offensive brightness of his own praises, which almost everywhere shine through his whole Oration on the Crown, in which he extols those embassies and decrees which were so much objected against him.

Not much unlike this is the insinuating delicacy of an antithesis, when a person, being accused for any thing as a crime, demonstrates its opposite to be base and vicious. So Lycurgus, being upbraided by the Athenians for stopping a sycophant’s mouth with money, said: And what kind of citizen do you then take me to be, who, having so long managed the affairs of the republic amongst you, am at last found rather to have given than to have received money unjustly? And Cicero, Metellus objecting he had cast more by his evidence against them than ever he had acquitted by his pleading for them, replies: Who therefore will not freely declare that Cicero has more honesty and faith than eloquence? Many expressions of this nature are in Demosthenes; particularly, But who might not justly have slain me, if I had endeavored in word only to sully the honors and glorious titles which the city hath? Or, What, think you, would those vile fellows have said, if, whilst I had been curiously poring on other things, the cities had rejected our alliance?Demosthenes on the Crown, p. 260, 1; p. 307, 9. And all his forementioned oration ingeniously dresses these antitheses and solutions of cases with the subtle ornaments of his own praise.

But this may very profitably be learned therein, that, delicately tempering the encomiums of his auditors with the things relating to himself, he secures himself from being liable to envy, nor becomes suspected of self-love. There he relates in what manner the Athenians behaved themselves to the Euboeans, in what manner to the Thebans, and what benefits they conferred upon those of Byzantium and Chersonesus; in all which he confesses his part was only that of their minister or steward. Thus by a rhetorical deceit, he finely and insensibly instils his own praises into his hearers, who pleasingly hang upon his words, and rejoice at the commemoration of those worthy deeds. Now this joy is immediately seconded by admiration, and admiration is succeeded by a liking and love of that person who so wisely administered the affairs. This Epaminondas seems to have considered, when reviled by Meneclidas, as though he had an higher opinion of himself than ever Agamemnon had. If it be so, says he, Thebans, ’tis you have puffed me up; you, by whose help alone I overthrew the Lacedaemonian empire in one day.

But since for the most part men are exceedingly displeased with those who are the trumpeters of their own fame, but if they sound forth another’s, are delighted and give them cheerful acclamations; it is hence grown a frequent custom amongst orators, by a seasonable extolling those who have like purposes, actions, and manner of life with theirs, to assure and wheedle over the auditory to themselves. For the hearers know that, though the panegyrist solemnizes another’s worth, he has yet the same endowments of virtue, so that his encomiums will redound to himself. For as he who reproaches any man for faults of which he himself is guilty cannot but perceive he principally upbraids himself, so the virtuous, by giving applauses to the virtuous, offer their own praises to the apprehensive, who will presently cry out, And are not you one of these? Therefore Alexander honoring Hercules, and Androcottus again honoring Alexander, in effect proposed themselves to be in like manner honored by others. So Dionysius scoffing Gelon, and calling him the Gelos (or laughing-stock) of Sicily, was not aware that through envy he had happened to infringe the greatness of his own authority and power.